Microproduct data guideintermediate

Crossref Works Metadata

Publisher-deposited DOI metadata for building literature monitors, journal alerts, funding analyses, and scholarly-reference tools.

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At a glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Small · ≤0.1 GB
Formats
JSON
Access
API
API key
Not required
Provider
Crossref
Updates
Continuous
Data terms
Crossref REST API terms and member-deposited metadata rights

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

Crossref exposes metadata deposited by DOI registrants, including titles, publication dates, funders, licenses, and updates. Start with one topic and a 30-day deposit window. Deposit completeness varies by member, and a deposit date is not necessarily the work's publication date.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An email address to identify polite API requests
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Choose one specific research topic and a 30-day deposit window.
  2. 2.Send a polite API request with your email address and limit the returned fields.
  3. 3.Retain each DOI and both publication and deposit dates for deduplication.
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3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

from datetime import date, timedelta
import pandas as pd
import requests

start = date.today() - timedelta(days=30)
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.crossref.org/works",
    params={
        "query": "wildfire risk",
        "filter": f"from-deposit-date:{start.isoformat()}",
        "select": "DOI,title,published,created,publisher,type",
        "rows": 100,
        "mailto": "you@example.com",
    },
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
works = pd.json_normalize(response.json()["message"]["items"])
print(works[["DOI", "publisher", "type"]].head(20))
4

Test a useful signal

Monitor recent deposits about one topic

Identify DOI records about wildfire risk deposited during the last 30 days.

  1. 01Retrieve a bounded result set and deduplicate records by DOI.
  2. 02Summarize deposits by publisher and work type while retaining publication dates.
  3. 03Explain how query matching, member-supplied metadata, and deposit timing limit the monitor.

Dataset details

Crossref is a nonprofit source. Last verified 2026-08-13. Temporal coverage: historical registered works through current deposits.

Theme

Research & Reference

Domains

ResearchScholarly Communication

Data types

Bibliographic DataEvent Data

Tasks

Literature MonitoringTrend AnalysisAlerting

Geography

Global

Formats

JSON

Provider

Crossref

Data terms

Crossref REST API terms and member-deposited metadata rights